First Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Wesley was such a big boy when dad pulled his tooth.  It was barely barely hanging on.  We went to the dentist just yesterday and he said that it would only be a day or so (and he was right!)  

Kate was so excited for him!  The tooth fairy came to visit and put $1.00 in his tooth fairy pillow (which is the same tooth fairy pillow I had as a kid).

The down side of the whole tooth shebang is that you aren't supposed to lose your teeth at 3.5yrs of age (that is a typical 6 or 7 yr old thing).  So Wesley isn't emotionally mature enough to really appreciate the excitement of the tooth fairy and his little gifts.  So when he woke up the next morning he was grabbing on to his $1 but then gave it back to me and its been hanging on the refrigerator ever since.  I'll have to remind him and see if he wants to get something for his big whopping dollar!

Merry Christmas From The Peters

Every year I try to include a picture of the kids on our Christmas card and I find myself wondering every year 'When will they be too old to put on our Christmas cards?'

And every year, I'm able to capture an absolutely priceless picture of my sweeties.  So to answer my own question...they will never be too old to put on Christmas cards (but they may become more rebellious and less willing to smile for a photo op like this one which was included on our 2010 Christmas Card).

Santa's brownies and Coke have been left, he has been tracked on the computer and should be making it our way in a few hours.  Justin is already asleep on the recliner so looks like Mrs. Claus will be doing the delivery this year.  :)

Gingerbread Cookies......

What comes to mind when you think of Gingerbread Cookies? 

 

Well after Kate's Christmas program at school, I will forever remember the cutest gingerbread girl EVER!

The Industrial Elementary West Christmas Program was amazing!  The kids did an amazing job.  The 3rd through 5th grades had an amazing play.  Kate was fortunate to share the night with MiMi and PaPa who drove all the way to see her sing 'Gingerbread Cookies on my tree, taste so very good to me.......'

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas - Part 2

I love our Christmas tree...it was the best (after Christmas) purchase I ever made a few years back.  Its prelit so the no hassle with the lights.  And Kate helped me decorate this year and we have so many momentous ornaments and now some hand-made ones.  They are precious!  The tree is in kitchen b/c we have huge kitchen with a huge window to the front so perfect placement.  However, we will have to move it into the living room before Christmas day so that we can open presents from Santa and sit in the living room.

 This is the cutest snowman that Wesley picked out for Kate at Hobby Lobby one day.  And yes, that is my wonderful husband in the background cooking dinner!

 We had some extra decorations that we always put on top of our TV in years past but Justin got the new flat screen so that is not an option this year.  So what better place to decorate than the aquarium and the lights on top make the aquarium look so nice at night!  Even fish need to holiday cheer in their lives!

A Santa decoration my grandma gave me years and years ago...I love it!

 We don't do fireplaces in our family (I can barely get Justin to turn the heater on at night when its freezing outside) so we don't have a fireplace mantle.  But we do have shelves and I got the cutest stocking holders.  For the record Vanessa has never had a stocking so this will be a special year for her!  Only took 24 years!

 And here are the lights!  Side view.  Our garage peak can be seen from the front of the subdivision when you enter so we just had to put lights on this side.  Next year we will keep adding more.

 The front of our house

 The cutest little chicken family that Kate picked out

 Our front door wreath...and I am a horrible picture taker..our house is not falling off the planet it was my amateur photo skills and the fact I was wearing flip flops on a cold wet ground when I took this picture  (smile!)

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

We found the cutest little Christmas shirt for Kate and she's been dyign to wear it and this weekend we finally got into the Christmas spirit! 

Justin (and his little helpers) spent most of Saturday afternoon putting lights and decorations on the house and it ROCKS! I haven't had a chance to take a picture of the house at night but I will do that soon and share.  Let's say that our house can be seen the minute you enter the subdivision!

It pays to have nifty equipment from work that allows for very quick and easy (and safe) Christmas light installation

Cat in the Christmas Tree?!?!

Our family tradition is to put up the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.  The tree was up and decorated Saturday.  Immediately when Whiskers came into the house he found the Christmas tree and has loved laying under it ever since.....I snapped this picture of him sitting pretty.  He hasn't tried to run up the tree but he has pawed at some of the ornaments and he has attempted to bite the light cord so our new routine is to cut the lights off when he comes in the house...we don't need a fried cat or a scene from Christmas Vacation the movie!

Kate then decided to put her stuffed kitty cat on the tree and see how long it would take me to notice....

It is definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house!  Love this time of year!

Love these guys!

 As I head into the next week and officially say good-bye to Thanksgiving weekend, I really had to blog about all that I am thankful for. 

These kids!  I don't have a large family of my own but my Aunt Cathy and Uncle David(my dad's brother) live about an hour away and they had Katharina a few weeks before I had Wesley.  So it is so nice to get the kids together.  They absolutely LOVE playing with each other!  Here they are making fruit bowls *yummy*

 I am so THANKFUL that my kids get to know my grandma and share so much time with her. She is quite the lively lady!  In this picture I'm sure she is giving some good advice or telling an interesting story  :)

I am thankful that my uncle has tons of toys!  And one of them happens to be this John Deere tractor that he let Wesley ride around in!  How cool is that for the 3 yr old John Deere LOVER!

Words can't express how thankful I am for this picture below.....my uncle taking Wesley on a ride around his place on the tractor.  My kids will never get to know my dad personally but he and my uncle favor each other a lot and have a lot of similar traits.  I don't think Uncle David will ever know how happy he made Wesley by taking him for a ride on his 'big green tractor!'

The impromptu see-saw!  Katharina saw some boards laying around and wanted my uncle to make a see-saw.  Of course he did and the kids had a great time flying up and down.

These guys:

Whiskers crawled up on Wesley tonight and made himself quite comfy.  I snapped this picture because Wesley will be so happy to see this picture in the morning when he wakes up! 

Look who found the Christmas Tree?  He (as you can suspect) was quite intrigued with the lights and ornaments and all things dangly....Whiskers was not with us at this time last year and I am so thankful that God put him in our lives.  He is such a sweet cat and has really found his place in our family.  Jake probably isn't as appreciative of him (smile smile) but maybe one day he will get used to him. 

Maroon Out - 2010!

Go Aggies!  Beat the Hell out of Nebraska(tomorrow night!)

Go Cobras!  Beat Taft! (tonight - second round of HS football playoffs!)

Its really really nice when your schools have the same colors!  We definitely bleed maroon!

FYI..pardon the grainy picture.  Dad was handling camera duty this morning and turned the flash off.  By the time I figured out that he was doing something wrong, no one wanted to take anymore pictures! :)

In a few hours we will be off to Wesley's Thanksgiving lunch at his school.  Yummy...MORE turkey.

He has been practicing his turkey song, so we are excited to hear the kids and enjoy some good food and fellowship with some cute kids and great faculty.

Video Camera FOUND

On December 9th, Kate's school is having its annual Christmas program.  The kindergarten class is dressing up as Gingerbread men (I know this because I have to make the costume) and they are singing a very cute song (I know this because she rehearses daily....sometimes hourly...I know the song by heart myself!)
Thinking about how special this program will be for her and our entire family, it got me thinking about my Kindergarten Christmas program.  I was an elf.  Almost all of us were elves unless you were really great and got to be Mr. and Mrs. Claus.  If you weren't even good enough to be an elf (or your parents did not agree to make your costume) you got put in the chorus.  I still have the VHS that the school sold and when I still owned a VHS player, I'd pop it in every now and then when one of my elf friends (Erin or Tara) were around to show them just how silly we looked.  One time I showed it to Justin to prove to him that I have ALWAYS been the smallest person in my age group...the line of elves takes a very sharp dip when it gets to me  :)
Nonetheless, this video made me think about how life with two kids started getting really busy and I put the video camera away and started taking still shots with my camera.  It was like I had to make the choice between one of the two and the camera won out.  So.....I mozied on up to the storage room and went through boxes and boxes of unpacked 'stuff'.  I finally found the video camera and all the used video tapes.
The camera had a video in it and I was almost scared to play it back.  Why?  Well I was nervous that I had never got any video of Wesley.  I honestly don't ever remember taking any video of him!
However, to my pleasant surprise was an 18 month old Wesley toddling around his 4 year old sister.  He had these amazing curls and huge dimples and Kate's hair was half as long as it is now.  Jake was in some of the footage and he looked as good as he does now (he had a bit more hair on his tail than he does now).
So basically I realized that when we made the decision to move to Victoria, I put away my video camera and never opened it (until yesterday).  What did I miss:
1.  Selling the house in Conroe (which by the way, it was very very monumental to see our old yard and house in the footage)
2.  Moving into the rent house (which by the way, I absolutely HATED the rent house so I am not as concerned that there is no footage of that place!)
3.  Wesley turning 2
4.  Kate turning 5
5.  Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009 and New years 2010
6.  The building process of our new house
7.  Wesley turning 3
8.  Kate turning 6
9.  Any and all beach vacations and Sea World vacations from 2009-2010
Note that items 3-9 have TONS of still shot footage so the kids aren't completely missing 2 years of their lives  :)

So the good news is that I've found the camera in time for Kate's Christmas program.  I've started recording the kids at ages 3 and 6 and the new house....well its finished and still new and still standing and hopefully in 30 years when the kids sit down to watch this video we'll be sitting in the same house (maybe not so new) and they will get as much joy out of watching the videos as I did!

Cute conversations with the Peters Kids

Kate has officially been in 'real' school (aka NOT preschool!) for 3 months now.  She is doing FANTABULOUS and looks forward to going each and every day.  She is one of the only ones in her class that has perfect attendance because everyone has caught some sort of 'bug'.  But the first few weeks were still an adjustment.  All of her preschool classes have always been half day so even though she may have stayed until 3pm, Kindergarten was her first full day of structure (and rule following).  So the first few weeks she'd ask us if she HAD to go to school today.  My response was 'Kate, this is not preschool...this is real school and you learn so much each and every day that you MUST go or you will get behind.' 
Today she came home from school and dad picked her up.  She told him the story of Gwendolyn in her class. 
Kate:  'Daddy, do you know that today Gwendolyn finally came back to school and Mrs. Keith asked her if she had been sick.'
Daddy:  'Was she sick?'
Kate:   'She told Mrs. Keith that she wasn't sick, but they took vacation!'
Daddy:  'Oh really?'
Kate:  'Yes...and then Mrs. Keith told Gwendolyn that she was going to talk to her mommy because she can't miss school because of a vacation.'
Daddy:  'Right'
Kate:  'I leaned over to Gwendolyn and told her 'Gwendolyn this is not preschool..this is real school and you have to come every day unless you are sick.'
Daddy:  'What did Gwendolyn say when you told her that?'
Kate:  'She just stared at me and didn't say anything so I guess she never went to preschool and doesn't know what that is!'

Love her! 
P.S.  I guess she does listen after all  :)

Happy Halloween from The Peters!

Kate and Wesley have the perfect Luke and Leia hair and they absolutely LOVE Star Wars so this was the perfect pair!  The funny thing is that most of the kids their age didn't really know who Luke and Leia were but all of the parents did.  So needless to say there were no other Luke and Leia's!

 Kate loves cats so I surprised her with my rendition of a black cat  :)

 Vanessa was such a trooper..she had worked 7pm to 7am at the hospital and then got up at 2pm the next day to go trick or treating with the kids and had to head back to work at 7pm.  She was the cutest butterfly ever!

One cute couple...............his smile is priceless!

 Trick or treating..............

Hay ride......................

Red Ribbon Week - Day 5 - Spirit Day

Kate's school went all out spirit day and she was adorned in her adorable ponytails and maroon bows and COBRA sweatshirt!  We even painted #1 on her cheek (anyone see a future cheerleader here?!?!?)

Wesley's school had the theme 'Be a HERO, not a ZERO' and dressed as superheros.  Wesley is showing his big boy muscles!

And here are my favorite COBRA and SUPERMAN! 

Day 4 - Oops..no pictures

Just as I was about to post pics of day 5 of red ribbon week theme activities, I realized that I forgot to post for Day 4.  And shame on me for completely not even taking pictures.  There is a very good reason behind the absence of pictures.  Thursdays are Kate's Kumon days so she gets home from school and we do some homework and we head to Kumon and by the time we get home its almost 7pm and they are practically stripping clothes at the door to head to the bath! So to help paint a picture of what they looked like...it was WEAR RED day at Wesley's school so he wore a cute red polo shirt and blue pants.  Kate's school had the theme 'TURN YOUR BACK ON DRUGS' and wore their shirts backwards.  Cute idea  :)

Red Ribbon Week - Day 3 - "Drugs are Ridiculous"

Theme today is crazy outfit day!  This was the PERFECT day for my Kate because (while she is the sweetest girl ever) absolutely hates conformity and being 'normal'.  She and I have discussions every morning when she gets dressed about 'Why do my clothes have to match, mommy?'

So the fact that today was purposely mismatched/crazy clothes was FABULOUS for her.  She LOVED it.  Her favorite part was her silly hair. When she came out to show dad her finished outfit he LOVED her silly hair...Wesley just wanted to touch it (over and over and over again!).

Wesley's theme was cowboy...yee haw!

Red Ribbon Week - Day 2 - "Join the Fight Against Drugs"

Today was 'WEAR CAMOFLAUGE' day at Kate's school.  Vanessa bought her the cutest camo shirt (that we will eventually be able to share with Wesley - love unisex things!) and she borrowed Wesley's camo John Deere boots.  Wesley's school theme was a Hawaiian theme.  Kate does kind of blend into the wall doesn't she?

Red Ribbon Week - Day 1 - "Let Your True Colors Shine"

Its that time of year again..Red Ribbon Week...the schools pick the themes for each day in an attempt to teach the kids about drugs and drug prevention.  This is the first year that the kids are at different schools so that means two times the dress up fun each day!  However, Wesley was not a school on Friday when his teacher passed out the themes so he did not dress up today.  At Kate's school the objective was to wear BRIGHT colors!  She wore her bright vest and light up shoes!

Mommy finally bought marshmallows!

So we enjoyed a Sunday evening campfire weenie and marshmallow roast.  Except we had to modify slightly b/c the wind was crazy strong and we did not want to catch our house or neighbors houses on fire and totally ruin the experience.  We had a blast!

 And oh my goodness!  Who is that in a picture?  Me?  What a sentimental moment...mommy in a picture and not holding the camera  :)

Double the Birthday Fun!

When you have 1 child born in July and 1 child born in October, you don't really envision having back to back birthday parties in October....but when you are moving into your new house in July and the July baby gets his birthday skipped over, what else are you to do?  Well, in our house when the July baby is lucky enough to have a sweet sweet sister who volunteers to share her birthday with him, we have back to back parties in October!  Here is a glimpse into our weekend!

TWO BOUNCE PARTIES
Wesley's John Deere bounce party at 3:00pm

From left to right:  Cade, Niko, Claudia, Kate, Mary Grace, Wesley (totally being silly), Nicholas, Katharina, and Cooper (not shown b/c they are hidden behind Katharina and Cooper are Charlie and Bishop)

Kate's kitty cat princess bounce party at 4:15pm

From left to right making silly faces:  Niko and Claudia (our cute neighbors), Kate(birthday girl), Avery (diving into the camera), Natalie, Zane, Caleb, Madelyne, Macy Rae, Katharina(cousin), Elizabeth and Courtland(cousin).  And of course..the star of the party...Kyle in the front row!

I decided to make the kids' cakes because Kate requested her fave Sock-it-to-Me cake.  But I wanted the cakes to be a surprise for them until their parties so this is what I had to do to keep them hidden:

And here is the finished cake for each of my sweeties!  They were very surprised and loved them!

This was Kate's gift from Mom and Dad....hours and hours of fun to be had in the Peters' back yard! Even Jake is enjoying in the fun!

Soon to come...pics of the kids on their gift from Grandma...they are growing up so fast!